Even though there might be a one in a million chance of being impacted, we freak out when peanuts are linked to salmonella. Likewise if there is one mad cow in Alberta, no steak for six months. How about when a drug causes unforeseen health risks? Remember Vioxx? You can’t really blame people, why take the chance? Besides the media usually loves to hype when a common food or a drug has been linked to a disease. Usually.
Oral contraceptives have been linked to various maladies over the years but these facts are widely ignored. Breast cancer, cervical cancer, and heart disease have all been associated with oral contraceptives and this has been received to the collective yawn of the media and the contracepting public. Inconvenient truth you might say.
Now add to the list of risks associated with oral contraceptives – Lupus.
ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2009) — The ratio of women to men with the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is nine to one and the incidence increases after puberty. Hormones secreted by the body are therefore believed to play an important role in the origins of the disease.
A new large, population-based observational study found that the use of oral contraceptives was associated with an increased risk of SLE, particularly among women who had recently started taking them.
Rhetorically I ask, “why is it that so many would swear off hamburgers, peanut butter, or arthritis medicine at the slightest hint of a risk but ignore clear evidence of health risks when it comes to contraception?” Obviously, the pill is intrinsically linked to the false notion of sexual liberation and no amount of bad news, save body parts immediately falling off, will turn people off of getting turned on.
In this revolution, the media and the masses loudly proclaim by their silence “Give me liberty and give me death.”
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